Visconti Luxor Rollerball

The Luxor Obelisk (Obélisque de Louxor) is a high Egyptian obelisk standing at the center of the Place de la Concorde in Paris, France.

On 1936 the Luxor Obelisk was classified as a historical monument.

The Luxor Obelisk is over 3,000 years old and was originally situated outside of Luxor Temple (Egypt), where its twin remains to this day. It first arrived in Paris on December 21, 1833. It was gifted to France by Muhammad Ali Pasha, Ruler of Egypt.

The obelisk, a yellow granite column, rises 23 meters (75 ft.) high, including the base, and weights over 250 metric tons (280 short tons). It is decorated with hieroglyphs exalting the reign of the king Ramses II.

Missing its original pyramidion (believed stolen in the 6th century BC), the government of France added a gold-leafed pyramid cap to the top of the obelisk in 1998.

Inspired to this magnificent monolite and in order to celebrate the 10th years anniversary since its restoration, Visconti has decided to present an extraordinary piece of art finely decorated with historical hieroglyphs originally copied from the real obelisk.

The Luxor pen is based on the ancient squared shape of the obelisk. The working on the pen is a result of a mix of techniques secretly handed down from time to time in Visconti atelier.

The pen is originally turned from vintage red ebonite bars and then is covered with 8 layers of Japanese lacca from master makieshi.

The technique used is called ikakeji and was blossomed in the Edo period (1603–1868). Maki-e objects were initially designed as household items for court nobles; they soon gained more popularity and were adopted by royal families and military leaders as a symbol of power.

The pen is decorated with reproductions of the original colorful hieroglyphs.

Archeologists think that those obelisks where covered with gold and semiprecious stones reflecting the sun light as symbol of devotion to the SUN that for the ancient Egyptian culture was embodied in Ra. This is why Visconti painters used colors for the hieroglyphs on the pen. In order to celebrate the importance of RA his eye symbol is finally chiseled in 18kt gold at the bottom of the cap.

The clip is shaped on the ancient Egyptian ankh also known as crux ansata (the Latin for "cross with a handle"). It is an ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic ideograph with the meaning "life". The Egyptian gods are often portrayed carrying it by its loop, or bearing one in each hand, arms crossed over their chest. The ankh appears in hand or in proximity of almost every deity in the Egyptian pantheon (including Pharaohs). The metal parts are in solid casting brass covered from 1,5 microns of pure gold. It is provided with the very famous double reservoir power filler d from Visconti.

Cap is easy to screw and unscrew as it is provided of four principles.

Note

Creating a new model / pattern is a job that can take to designers many weeks of work.

To discover, to interpretate, to represent the subject is always an honor and it takes a very long work of preparation. Beside the cultural research, which is always at the base of every Visconti creation, also the production side is very complicated.

Visconti artisans to produce one pen need more than every two weeks (!), being all the pieces enameled and finished by hand.